30: Extraordinary
by cali-chan
Summary: Professor Sinistra contemplates the mechanics of the relationship between three of her students while grading their essays. Trio drabble, written preHBP.


**extraordinary** drabble, HP

**summary:** professor sinistra contemplates the mechanics of the relationship between three of her students while grading their essays.

**notes:**the queen of the weird POVs is back! takes place during OotP. this is more like an essay, methinks. it's basically what i think about their relationship, but put into prof. sinistra's words. so yeah, i'd say this is a trio-lovin' OT3 personified essay. originally titled "normal," but i felt this new title fit better. oh, and i'm aware that they did not take astronomy in their first two years at hogwarts (...right?), so when she says she knew what hermione went through, let's just say she heard it from somewhere. i finished it one day a few months ago at 4:34 am and haven't technically revised it, so do forgive me if there are any horrific typos/mistakes.

**warnings:** there is probably a _teeny tiny_ hint of h/hr. but do not worry if you're not one of my shipmates! it is hardly noticeable and since this pretty much has no plot, you can just disregard it if you want. it was just me being unable to avoid my natural bias :) do keep in mind that i wrote this before HBP came out, so yeah. you get an idea of what to expect.

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To be truthful, Millennia Sinistra had always pictured herself as somewhat eccentric. It wasn't something she didn't like about herself, either; she took a lot of pride in being unique. Growing up, it had been hard on her as her quirky personality, keen eye for detail and ability to speak her mind weren't actually liked by everyone... but by the time she had graduated, she had learned to embrace anything deviant in her. It all helped her in her career, after all; an astronomer had to have all of the above and more to be successful. 

When she'd been offered the position of Astronomy Professor at Hogwarts, she'd been delighted. Students might not like to think so, but at Hogwarts any person that was considered strange could find his or her little niche. Extravagance was as common as hydrogen here. And she loved it. On one side, she could be at her most outrageous and still be considered level with the rest of the people-- just think about it, even if she was strange, she'd never compare in strangeness to someone along the likes of... Sybill Trelawney, for example. And yet, each and every person still managed to bring in something special, unique, that only they could bring in, to make Hogwarts such a wonderful place. It was truly incredible.

Some people, though, insisted in simply wanting to be _normal_.

She looked down at the name written atop the roll of parchment she was reading. She was grading Harry Potter's essay.

She kept that in mind as she read, correcting phrases here and there and adding comments. She normally wouldn't practice any kind of special treatment to a specific student, but she had decided early in the term that she would cut Potter some slack this year. The boy had other, much more important things to think about, so she could forgive a few mistakes in his essays from time to time. At least he was getting better; he didn't write about rodent infestations in Jupiter's moons anymore.

She'd always thought that her position as Astronomy Professor came with some priviledges. Her classes weren't like the other teachers. She didn't have to walk around the classroom checking that the students' potions hadn't melted the floor. She didn't have to keep an eye out so someone's charm wouldn't make another person bloat up. She didn't have to spend fifty minutes returning poor half-transfigured animals to their original states. Her field of study was so immense that she didn't even have to stand up from her desk to teach it to the students. It was mostly theoretical, her teaching method; she usually left her students to work with their telescopes by themselves and they could come and ask her anything if they had doubts.

All of this gave her ample time to just observe her students. And as she'd already said, she had a very keen eye for detail.

Oh, yes. Harry Potter wanted nothing more than to be normal. A normal teenage wizard, with normal friends, having normal fun and living with his normal, loving parents. He wished that he didn't have a vicious, evil Dark Lord behind him every step of the way, trying to get rid of him. And of course she understood that; she wouldn't wish Potter's fate on anybody, much less a fifteen-year-old kid like him. But still, there was something very special in Harry Potter-- a light that shone from within him, a power like the wizarding world had never seen. Everybody could see it, deep down. Even if at the moment half the population thought he was crazy, they could all see it. And she wondered if he would still have it if he hadn't gone through so much adversity. He probably wouldn't be the same person, in that case.

But fate had spoken and he just wasn't normal, would never _be_ normal, no matter how much he wanted to pretend he was. That light inside him, if he didn't grab on to it, would fade away. Normal was dull. Normal was mediocre. And if Harry wanted to have a good life, he'd have to learn to deal with the fact that normal was just not him. Only by accepting that he was capable of being so much _more_, would he be able to finally be happy.

She had seen slight changes in him all through the school year. Where he'd been quiet and rather meek his first few years of schooling, now a new Harry Potter was standing. Before, he'd used to just take everything in-- he didn't like any of what was happening to him, but he never said anything about it. He just kept things bottled up inside. It was very innocent, in a way... he'd been just a kid. She had a feeling that innocence would dissappear when all those repressed feelings blew out-- because they would, eventually. It was unavoidable.

This year, it had happened. Of course, after Cedric Diggory's death in June, all of Hogwarts had matured a little. Tragedy and the threat of the Dark Lord had forced them all to grow up suddenly; but no one more than Potter.

This time, he wasn't just taking it all in; he was reacting. Things were happening to him and around him, and he didn't know why it had to be that way, but he wasn't going to go quietly along. He wanted to be included, he wanted to participate. He wanted to get to the bottom of it all. He was starting to use that raw power inside him, and though maybe he was using it for the wrong reasons-- to finally get his chance at normalcy, perhaps-- at least he knew it was there. He knew he could do something, help in some way, and, as horribly cliched as it sounded, make the wizarding world a better place. He was a Gryffindor, after all; they held those kind of ideals very highly.

She wondered if that newfound strength hadn't come at a price. Potter had been increasingly moody and that couldn't be good for his relationship with others. Granted, he'd never really interacted much in class, but lately he seemed even more withdrawn than usual. And she could see the cautious looks his two friends shared before saying anything to him, as if they thought that with any sound they make, he'd explode. No, it would not do. It was good that he was letting his issues out into the open, but it was just as wrong to take things to the other end of the spectrum-- and end up being isolated from those who loved him most. Especially not those two.

Because the three of them, ah... they were something else. They were special enough by themselves, but together, it was just beautiful. The Golden Trio of Hogwarts. Through the years, it had become one of her guilty pleasures just to see them interact. They seemed like such a tight team, a unit. The way they balanced each other was almost (dare she think it?) magical. She hadn't been part of the Hogwarts staff when the famous Marauders had been around, but she'd heard many stories about them and all the mischief they caused; they were certainly role models to every Hogwarts prankster from then on. She was sure that the Trio was becoming legend in their own way, too.

She looked back at the pile of essays she had already graded and looked at one in particular. Granger had scored, as always, more than 100 in her grade. Now if that wasn't an out of the ordinary person, she didn't know what was. She was one of the few to be extraordinary and proud of it.

In all her years as a teacher, she had probably never had a student who loved studying, just for the sake of it, so much. Still, she hadn't escaped the changes of growing up. Granger was probably one of those girls whose parents had thought that knowledge is power. Learn to read before preschool, strive to be the perfect student, get the best grades so you can get into the best of those "College" things, and then make lots of money doing your choice of a carreer and live happily. "You can do anything if you know how to," "Books will always help you find the right answer." And Granger held onto those beliefs to this day; which was admirable, but Millenia thought, a little "theorical." It wasn't until she got to Hogwarts and met her best friends that she finally learned the "practical" side of being smart. And that, you could see in the slight changes in her personality.

She almost felt sorry for the girl, in the first year she was in Hogwarts. Extraordinary wasn't something the rest of the ordinary world took well to, and they could all be so cruel when something threatened their normalcy. Granger had to suffer a lot those first few months, she knew. Maybe it was that way even before she came to Hogwarts. She had seen it... no one would talk to her, and she would always sit alone in the front row, wondering if the laughs her classmates shared were at her expense, and wishing they wouldn't roll their eyes everytime she raised her hand to answer a question. Kids didn't know how much hurt they could cause, sometimes. Millenia could see some of herself in Granger; not in the book-smart part of Granger, because she didn't consider herself book-smart in anything but Astronomy, but in that they were both great women in their own way. And so her heart went out to the girl. Luckily for Granger, and though some taunts still followed her to this day, she had found her little niche, too.

She looked at Potter's essay again. By now she felt she could exactly pinpoint the parts in which Granger had helped him. It wasn't unusual, everybody knew she often went over Potter and Weasley's homework to correct them. And that was it, Millenia thought. Before coming to Hogwarts, Granger had nothing to do with all that knowledge except store it in her head. Now she found a new purpose in life and that purpose had a first and last name.

Ah, the charm of the green eyes. She didn't think it could be called a crush, though, not in the typical, "teenage" definition of the word. Their friendship was worth much more than _just_ a crush, yet the bond between them ran much stronger than _just_ friendship. She saw it when Granger glanced at him, constantly worrying. She couldn't define it, but what was certain was that Harry Potter had become the center of Hermione Granger's life and she thought that was plain to see. Of course Granger still loved learning new things, but what use did it have if she couldn't help her best friend save himself from the cruel designs of fate? She was definitely... what was that phrase?... "the brains of the outfit." She was the one to bring him down to reality, and to help him deal with it. She had gone so far as to even break some school rules to help her two friends; and that was a huge event when she was involved. Millenia didn't think about it so much as that the boys corrupted her but instead that her feelings for those two were so strong, her priorities had shifted. Slowly, but surely. Everything she learned, everything she could give was up for Potter to take, if only he wanted to accept it.

And he did, sometimes. He leaned on her so much more than he knew. Just reading his essay could prove it; what would be of it if Granger hadn't coached him through it? He would probably be failing Astronomy this term, for sure. If what she'd heard from the Headmaster about events past was true, he wouldn't even be alive to write the essay.

She did think Potter took her for granted a lot, though. She was sure it wasn't that he didn't appreciate her; he just didn't think things through that much. He didn't yet know what he had. And he was a kid, after all; a kid who had to grow up too fast, granted, but still a kid. And as kids tend to do, he usually skipped over serious and dramatic reality, to go to a world of fantasy and fun.

She looked at the pile of essays she hadn't graded yet. Skipping over Thomas', she read the name on the very last one-- the last member of The Trio, of course: Weasley. The essay was drastically different from the other two she had been thinking about. Granger's was neat and tidy, perfectly aligned and spaced. Potter's handwriting was small and tight, and the paragraphs were almost pushed together making the roll of parchment crowded and a little hard to read. Weasley's essay, though, was very messy; his handwriting was big and clear (loud, she thought with a grin), but a couple of words and phrases had been scratched out, as if he hadn't had time to write it down again in a cleaner way. That alone spoke volumes of their personalities, actually.

At first glance, Weasley was as normal as a teenage boy gets in the Wizarding World. He had a big, caring family; was outgoing and loved to have fun; didn't much like school but wanted to make a place for himself in it. She refused to believe that was all Weasley had to himself. Granted, he wasn't all that great in Astronomy but she knew he, too, was special, even if the shadows of his brothers, and Potter and Granger kept it from being known.

Ronald Weasley was everything Potter wanted to be. Because when one had a life so hard, one needed a sort of "safe place" to forget about all the problems, all the pain and all the anger. Weasley was Potter's "safe place", the one that gave him hope for the future. Being like Weasley was his personal goal. When reality got a little too heavy, Weasley was there with a joke and a smile and the promise that maybe there was something better out there. And while Weasley couldn't solve complex riddles to save Potter's life physically, he surely had kept him from falling off the edge of madness some time. There was more than a person than just the body, after all. One could be alive, but not _living_. And that was an ability Weasley had to give to Potter that separated him from the rest of the normal, ordinary Wizarding teens.

She had heard about the rift between them the past year. Who hadn't? Secrets in Hogwarts didn't exist and it became painfully obvious that something had gone wrong between them when for the first time in years they didn't sit together in class. She'd seen Granger and Weasley at odds before (_that_ particular relationship was just as peculiar as those two were), but not the two boys. She hoped she never had to see it again. Potter certainly couldn't affort to lose any support, much less his best friend, who was almost a third of himself. And Weasley was all about feelings. Usually joy, and mischief; but also very human and capable of jealousy and anger. He needed to understand that he wasn't suffocating his potential by being beside Potter, instead he was taking it to new heights. There was nothing that spoke more of a person than their doing all they could to help someone else. And if he wanted to be recognized, Millenia thought being the best friend he could be had much more merit than vanishing Dark Lords or being number one in your class. You don't need fame or intelligence to be extraordinary; sometimes you just have to be yourself. Because _not just everyone_ actually gets to.

And clearly, the Golden Trio was much more than just the sum of its parts. When it came to those three kids, there was nothing that was normal. And she was so glad she got to see them interact with each other. It was almost... beautiful. And sad and fun and interesting, all at the same time. The way three people that were so special in their own way, yet so different from each other could find each other in this world full of ordinary people and complement each other so perfectly. Most people would look outside the windows and marvel at the wonder that was the sky, the birds, the trees and the sea. She did know and acknowledge the beauty that was in the beyond. But as she'd said, she was different than most people. For her, there was nothing more amazing than looking at what was inside a person. And these three, they formed something amazing. Weasley, Granger and Potter.

Heart, Mind and... Soul.

It was extraordinary.


End file.
